The Best Within You
by Julia451
Summary: To commemorate her victories in episode "5 to 9," at the end of the day, House gives Cuddy a certain gift addressed to "the Dagny Taggart of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital."


"_You know he's cussing you out in there now?" "I don't care as long as he does it."_

"_Princeton-Plainsboro has the highest-rated ER in the state, the most advanced ICU, and the most innovative diagnostic medicine department in the entire country."_

"_They should be pressuring other hospitals to be more like us, not trying to make us more like them. It's stupid."_

"_Do you have any idea how much it costs, how many years it takes to train someone in microsurgery?"_

"_You still have a thumb because of us, and like everyone else in this world, we don't work for free. We earn this money, and if we have to take your house to get it, we will."_

There had been moments today when Dr. Lisa Cuddy doubted that she would live to make this journey from her office to the elevator to the parking lot. Her brain still couldn't grasp it – the day couldn't be over yet, with no more procedures to approve, complaints to field, lawyers to fight, schedules to review, contracts to sign, speeches to give, mysteries to solve, criminals to catch, meetings to survive, battles to win, mountains to climb, and enemies to vanquish for the next eight hours! Each step she made without someone rushing up to her to report a new crisis helped to drive home the reality of it. She almost regretted it – days like this shouldn't be allowed to end. _Savor it while you can_, she ordered herself. _Tomorrow will not end as successfully – it never does_.

Cuddy didn't realize she'd made it to the elevator until after she'd pushed the down button. It felt odd to do that without the sense of urgency and panic with which she'd approached these machines all day, begging it to hurry up, faster, faster, before the world ended. She hoped it would be empty so she could follow her instructions to savor her feeling of well-earned triumph uninterrupted. When the bell rang and the doors opened, she saw that it was almost empty, but not quite.

She was about to point out that his office was below hers when he smirked in a way that reminded her that would be redundant. She contemplated turning and taking the stairs, but he stuck his cane out when the doors began to close. She smiled and walked in, feeling up to facing any challenge he had up his sleeve.

Cuddy was the first to speak: "If it were anyone else, I'd ask if you'd come to congratulate me."

"Oh, you know me so well," Dr. House said with his typical sarcasm. He paused before turning to her and adding, "Actually, you do. You know I know there's no way I could top the congratulations you're giving yourself." He turned back to face the doors and continued, "By the way, I congratulate you on knowing you deserve to be congratulated. If, like most people, you trusted other people's opinions of you instead of your own, you'd be calling yourself a cold-hearted bitch."

Without turning to look at him, Cuddy asked playfully, "How do you know that's _not_ how I congratulate myself?"

"Good strategy," she heard. "Replay every moment today when someone called you a bitch... because every one of those moments was another testament to your courage, your strength, your power, more proof of their knowledge that you had them beat, and that they were no match for you."

Still facing forward, Cuddy shrugged her shoulders and said matter-of-factly, "It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. If I have to play dirty to defend this hospital..."

"Oh, don't ruin it. Don't play the I-did-it-all-for-the-greater-good card."

Cuddy turned to House and reminded him, "I told you my decisions are about principle, not my pride."

"What's the difference? You're not proud that you fight for principle?"

"Like you care about principles," Cuddy scoffed, turning away.

"True, but I hate denial," House replied. "You get up at 5 a.m. every day and fight for this hospital not to help every sick person in New Jersey but to stand by your principles and make everyone else respect them or get the hell out of your way." The doors opened, and they walked out into the main vestibule. House gestured forward with his cane as he continued, "When you walk through those doors, nothing is at stake for you but your sense of honor; everything else flows from that. You'll stare down any competitor, beat down any Board, smack down any lawyer, turn down any idiotic demand, and calm down any pissed off Head of Surgery all for the sake of your honor... and look where it got us. If you cared about the greater good more than yourself, you'd automatically give in to every thief with a sob story who begged for mercy, every patient with a sob story who tried to get free meds or surgery, and every guy across that desk who said you don't deserve what you deserve... and then where would we be?

"Was there a point to that speech?" Cuddy sincerely wondered.

House reached inside his jacket as he answered, "Just trying to segue into giving you this." He held a jewelry box, long and narrow as if for a necklace, out to her without looking at her or breaking his stride. He stopped and turned around when he didn't feel her take it.

Cuddy didn't know where this was going, but it couldn't be anywhere good. "House..."

"Ooh, do you find this awkward?" he asked sarcastically. "How about this – think of it, not as a gift to you, but as... a gift to_ the best within you_..." His voice trailed off as he looked at Cuddy as if expecting a response. When all she did was stare at him, confused about his emphasis over four innocuous words, he asked, now equally confused, "Doesn't ring a bell?"

"Should it?" Cuddy asked.

"I calculated a 90% chance it would," House answered. "Good news for you. This won't mean anything to you." He thrust the box, not roughly but firmly, into her briefcase-free left hand.

Cuddy held the box back out to him and said, "House, I am. With. Lucas."

"Making it all the more appropriate." With that, he turned and limped away before she could give it back or ask what that meant.

Rolling her eyes, Cuddy put down her briefcase and opened the box as timidly as if she expected to release the same plagues Pandora had. Inside was not a necklace but a strangely shaped bracelet. Cuddy removed it and dangled it in front of her eyes. It had no gems, and it wasn't gold or silver but a bizarre greenish-blue colored metal, more like a chain of odd-looking links than a bracelet. Cuddy ran a few of the links between her fingers before she recognized the shape they formed clearly as the ties and rails of a train track.

The realization flipped some switch in her mind; wheels began turning, trying to remind her of something involving green-blue metal, a bracelet, and a railroad. Something about this was familiar... or should be familiar. Not only that, she knew it was important. But why? The glimmer of memory refused to solidify into anything clear. She stared perplexed at the bracelet in her right palm before turning back to the box in her left hand. She now noticed a small card inside, a single flat strip of cardboard that simply said:

_To the Dagny Taggart of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital_

The recognition of the name, the gift, and the implications were instantaneous.

Memories of sitting under a tree in college reading a book for the pleasure of gloating over classmates who were too intimidated to take it on rushed to the forefront of her mind as Cuddy caught up with Dr. House and demanded, "Where did you buy this?"

He stopped in his tracks and turned to her with an amused smile. "Guy on Main Street who does custom jobs. Material ten times stronger and lighter than steel was a bit out of my price range, but fortunately he had something that looks the part."

This was his twisted idea of some stupid insult, Cuddy insisted to herself. She tried to summon the annoyance and indignation she thought she ought to be feeling, but she could only manage more curiosity, that prompted her to say, "You had this made in less than a day?"

"I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker! I've always wanted to say that."

"How long have you had this?" Cuddy rephrased.

House answered, "Since you refused to sell your hospital out to that second-hander who wanted to run a hospital without knowing the first thing about medicine."

There was a pause as Cuddy tried to figure out who he meant. The one person he could be referring to, didn't make sense. "Vogler?" she asked. House nodded. Amused at his mistake, she smiled as she added, "As in, Vogler, the pure-blooded capitalist who only cared about making money?"

"No, Vogler the most depraved type of second-hander – '_the man who goes after power_.' " House paused as Cuddy tried to recall this quote. When he saw she not only remembered but understood how he meant it, he said, "You chose running your business the right way over running your business his wrong way in exchange for free handouts."

"And I chose you over him," Cuddy said solemnly, almost sighing.

"That was stupid; you got a raw deal."

Cuddy saw herself surrounded by the Board explaining in four words why House was more valuable than Vogler: "He did his job," and he did it well. She managed to stop herself from saying out loud to Hosue now, I decided I'd rather make money with your competence than his pull. Instead, she held up the bracelet and asked, "And you figured this would... pay me back?"

"Meh, I thought it might be fun," House said before his nonchalant tone changed. "Then we had that whole crisis with Cameron and that whole crisis with the meningitis outbreak and the crisis with the dominatrix we thought tried to kill the patient... never seemed like the right time to bring it up."

"But you think now is?" Cuddy asked, confused again.

"You got me back in the mood," House replied, sarcastic again.

"You're... you're crazy." Now it was House's turn to look confused. Cuddy found herself struggling to sound offended as she asked, "Would Dagny Taggart have called an insurance company out on their greed, selfishness, and extravagance to get them to agree to a deal?" As soon as the words were out, she realized that what she was feeling wasn't offense or indignation over what he was saying about her – it was shame, from doubt that she deserved it.

"No," House answered, "but she might have threatened them with making the press and public think of them as greedy, selfish, and extravagant if she knew they valued not being called rich bastards by the press more than just being rich. She knew you only get what you value by offering people what they value in exchange."

"The medical business is not like the transportation business," Cuddy tried to insist. "I _do_ do more than just make a profit, I _am_ responsible for making sure everyone here saves lives..."

"_But_ 'before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done." "

"Wrong book," Cuddy said instantly.

House seemed overjoyed as he said, "… Which means you've read both it _and_ the prequel. Wow, my calculations were farther off than I thought."

"It's not a prequel."

"Death of the author."

Cuddy took a breath before saying, "If you really think I cared only about myself, I'd remind you of your psychopathic patient."

House groaned in frustration and said, "Oh, please don't tell me you're one of those morons who think 'rational self-interest' translates to 'no conscience.' "

"If it's right to look out for yourself, how is it wrong to hurt others?"

"I was wrong again," House sighed. "You didn't read the whole book. 'I swear that I will never live for the sake of another man' is only half of the vow. The other half, that psychopaths definitely don't follow, is..."

Cuddy smiled and said slowly, "...nor ask another man to live for mine." House returned her smile. Cuddy felt like he was watching her memory replay telling off Acevedo, his lawyer, and their attempt to make her hospital's ability serve his need for free. Then she remembered the last thing she did before leaving her office. House raised a quizzical eyebrow as the smile on her face dissolved. Cuddy suddenly realized that she didn't want House to figure out what she was thinking now; she didn't want him to know she had chickened out. But she couldn't deny to herself that she had. She blinked, gulped, and got a grip on her voice before saying, "Give me one good reason why I should wear this."

House answered, "To commemorate your victory in The Battle of AtlanticNet, your victory over Need, Entitlement, and Exploitation..."

Cuddy began to say, "AtlanticNet didn't..."

House cut her off, "Those were referring to Acevedo and Gail. Sorry; it is a long list of victories, I should be more specific."

Cuddy allowed a sigh to escape before she said, "If I _were_ Dagny Taggart, I wouldn't need your reassurance."

"You don't, but everyone wants it..." He narrowed in his eyes in that way that always made her think of Sherlock Holmes mulling over a mystery. "Or _do_ you need it?" He took her silence as an answer before concluding, "They got to you didn't they?"

Cuddy wondered if this was what confession felt like as she eplained, "Acevedo dropped off the first payment for his surgery. I tore it up. I just... it felt right at the time, but afterwards, I felt so... guilty..."

House sounded angry as he interrupted her: "It didn't 'feel' right at the time, you _judged _it was right, period. Why would you just ignore what you knew was right? If you did that with AtlanticNet...

"I got lucky," Cuddy said quickly. "I could have lost my job."

"You knew that. You just cared more about doing the objectively right thing than about your job."

"That's not what you said in the car," Cuddy said, now angry herself. "I know this place needs me, and I'll never abandon my duty to it, remember?"

I was bluffing."

"What, testing whether I had the balls to quit... to stick to being objective and doing what was right even when I thought it would mean having to resign, instead of sacrificing what was right for my job?"

"Yeah," House said, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world and it was stupid for them to be discussing it.

There was another pause before Cuddy said, "You might think everything I did today was 'objectively right,' but it didn't always feel like it. I know this is a bizarre, foreign concept to you, feeling guilty for saying 'No' to people..."

"Yeah, it is," House interrupted her again. Cuddy sighed and gave up, letting him continue, "Why do you let them make you feel guilty? For what? For everything that lets you run a superior hospital? Why should _their_ dishonesty and _their_ need and sense of entitlement make _you_ feel ashamed? Why do you try to deny the best within you?"

This was another test, Cuddy realized – you're strong enough to fight for and run this hospital, but are you strong enough to feel proud of how you do it? She told herself that she didn't need to impress or prove anything to Dr. House... then again, it was important for employees to respect their boss. Smiling confidently, she snapped the empty box closed, handed it to him, and clasped the bracelet around her right wrist.

" 'In the name of the best within us,' " Cuddy said to seal her victory in this last challenge of the day.

House shook his head and said, grinning, "Did I mention you're so sexy when you kick ass? And even sexier when you're proud of it?"

Cuddy watched him turn and walk away, head held high, confident, and upright – in spite of the cane and limp, or possibly because of them, the posture of a man who never knew fear nor guilt. The man who made her hospital the famous, superior institution it was, the man who provided the leverage she used against AtlanticNet. Today was a victory for both of them, she realized – his skill and intelligence, her courage to recognize it, harness it, and fight for it. She'd be home in Lucas' arms soon, but for the distance between herself and the final set of glass doors, she would allow herself to dwell on her connection with House, to wonder what bound them together more strongly – their partnership in battle, or their integrity and devotion to it that made them want to fight that battle?

She stopped at the doors before taking the step that would carry her over the threshold and glanced at the bracelet on her wrist. Should she wear it around Lucas? What would she say when he asked where she got it? She smiled as she decided it would be interesting to see if he would understand when she answered, "I earned it because I 'proved today that the right always works and always wins – provided one knows what is right.' "

* * *

Quotes from _Atlas Shrugged_ and _The Fountainhead_. On the scale of Objectivism in non-Randian works, _House_ Seasons 1-6 rank somewhere between Brad Bird's Pixar films and Carl Barks' Scrooge McDuck comics.


End file.
